Row with U.S. provides lessons — Sir Wallace

Press, 18 March 1985, Page 24

Row with U.S. provides lessons — Sir Wallace

By

HUGH NEVILL,

NZPA staff correspondent Washington

■ The port-calls dispute with the United States has provided lessons on how to raise New Zealand’s profile in Washington on other issues, says New Zealand’s Ambassador, Sir Wallace Rowling. Sir Wallace said, "Our communication is more limited than I would like it to be, although we have lines out all over the place,” But, he said, the dispute had led to a lot of contacts which would not otherwise have been made. “Many of those will be very useful,” he told NZPA in an interview. “I think

there are ways in which we can actively improve our profile based on the experience of the last few weeks. I have certainly been giving some very real thought to that” In his talks with' Congressmen, he said, they expressed amazement for example, that the United States ran a favourable trade balance with New Zealand. Sir Wallace said he did not change their minds on port calls, “but they take these things aboard ... at least they have another perspective on it. It helps to take the sting out of it.” When he saw New York’s Democratic Congressman, Mr Stephen Solarz, chair-

man of the House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, he took along a letter which Mr Solarz and others had signed. The letter asked the United States Navy to make an exception to its “neither-confirm-nor-deny” rule on the presence of nuclear weapons aboard when entering New York Harbour. Mr Solarz, a leading critic of New Zealand’s position, did not take it well, Sir Wallace said. “He said he wished he hadn’t signed it. I think that it is a bit lame." One Congressman told him that a “very senior official” in the State Department had told him that on reflection he thought the

United States had overreacted to the port-calls ban, he said.

Sir Wallace said he did not detect much difference in attitude between the departments of State and Defence in Washington, but that Admiral William Crowe, the Hawaii-based Commander-in-Chief for the Pacific, had been “pretty vehement” in some of his statements. On trade, Sir Wallace said that with a few exceptions the apprehension expressed by traders had “by and large not thus far proved to be particularly well founded. I think what is happening is that the dust is starting to settle.”